


Handmade Heaven

by laceaesthetic



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Flowers, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Symbolism, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, a deep feeling of isolation, nonchronological storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 13:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceaesthetic/pseuds/laceaesthetic
Summary: He likes to think these frequent meetings with Akechi are helping his social skills, helping him communicate his feelings. But today feels different, something left unsaid deep within his ribs. He stretches his legs, suddenly growing uncomfortably nervous. He tries to think of what to say, what could be some kind of console or solace to a boy so lost within the world. He finds nothing but his own desires.You can surround yourself with friends, you can love your friends deeply, but sometimes, they will never truly understand your experiences.





	Handmade Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Handmade Heaven" by Marina. Check out these song lyrics that remind me of the fic:  
> "I carry along a feel of unease  
> I want to belong like the birds in the trees  
> I sit on my own, look over the town  
> The skyscrapers glow like they'll never fall down"
> 
> Check the endnotes for the meanings of all the flowers!

"I would say that the others miss you, but we shouldn't lie to each other again." His companion says nothing, but he hears the rustling of leaves. Although, that sound may be aided by the wind. He forges on ahead, "It's been quite a while, hasn't it Akechi?" Silence overtakes the pair. Akira trudges on, “Usually, you’re the more talkative one, but Chihaya says Mercury is in retrograde, so I guess that’s impacting our dynamic." More silence. Akira has grown used to carrying the conversation by himself. He likes to think these frequent meetings with Akechi are helping his social skills, helping him communicate his feelings. But today feels different, something left unsaid deep within his ribs. He stretches his legs, suddenly growing uncomfortably nervous. He tries to think of what to say, what could be some kind of console or solace to a boy so lost within the world. He finds nothing but his own desires.

 

He sighs. It is not an attempt to break the silence because the air between them is light and companionably. It is an attempt to break the last layer of defense he has against Akechi, to form words he had previously not even shaped within his mind. He runs his hands along the plant bed they sit by. He thinks of what he wants, of what he wishes. The desperate rush of words that can only be spoken by a broken man, to a broken man, nearly reach his tongue. He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out. Akira is beginning to feel like an idiot with his mouth wide open, so he grabs the words that have been sitting in his brain restlessly, “Actually, I think it’s time we __do__ switch up our dynamic.” The next words are thick on his tongue, foreign almost. He’s not well-practiced in saying them. “Right, Goro?” He hears that infamous, twinkling laugh play in his ears. There's still a layer of falsehood in it, a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Though Akira has long since grown used to the artificial quality of everything that involves Akechi, he just wishes there was something __real__  to latch onto. He tries to ground himself but ends up looking at the sky instead.

  
  
For a moment, as he stares out into the city, he wishes he could change his cognition. He wishes he could morph all of LeBlanc into a Palace, but specifically, a home. One where Sojiro doesn't have to worry about his finances and has given up the pretense of opening the shop altogether. Yes, in his warped version of Leblanc, only the Phantom Thieves and his closest friends outside of that would be able to enter. It would be a version of LeBlanc that always hosts his partners in crime, as they bicker, huddled and cramped, in Akira’s old room. A version where the Thieves walk in and out freely but are always able to attend to his call. There would be no meetings for Haru to attend, no anxiety that Futaba had to overcome, no photo-shoots that Ann could not miss, no train fare that Yusuke could not afford. In this version, his friends would be his friends alone. And in this version of LeBlanc, on the counter, there is always a hot cup of coffee, guarded by Goro Akechi. And he smiles every time Akira enters, genuine and true. He does not sit at the booths like Kawakami or Yoshido. He never dares ascend the stairs to meet the Phantom Thieves. But he is there, nonetheless, welcoming Akira with a trivial question. His questions never repeat. It is a version of LeBlanc that can hold Akechi's truest form.

 

_Akechi's truest form._

 

It strikes Akira that he does not know what that phrase entails, that he may never know. With that simple acknowledgment, he lets go of his daydreams. _All of them._  He comes back to reality and turns to face his companion.

 

His companion is a bed of snapdragons, wonderfully growing thanks to Haru's loving touch. The plant bed is encased with lavish mahogany, and at its front, there is a stone plaque. It is not drilled into the wood, just simply hanging. It plainly reads __Akechi Goro.__  If one did not know better, they would merely assume this section of the garden was owned by the boy. But if one did not know better, they would not be allowed to see the garden at all.

 

Haru is protective of this garden. It stands on the roof of her penthouse, overlooking the skyscrapers around her. It is locked, with only herself and the other Thieves holding a key. Akira, despite being the farthest, uses his key most extensively. He is second only to Haru, who waters the garden diligently and monitors the growth of each plant like she would a child. She does not allow maintenance men to come in without a day's notice, no matter the emergency. When the notice comes, she drops all of her duties to run up the stairs and hastily rip off the plaque. She would rather her entire building burn than for a stranger to stumble in and read the words on her bed of pink flowers. Akira supposes the paranoia comes from the countless times they have brushed the possibility of being arrested or dying.

  
It was rather charming to Akira when Haru first introduced their friends to the flower bed. It was a memorial for a boy who would never be announced dead. A little piece of something that would be forever lost with Mementos. Long overdue, since she had shown it off after the fight with Yaldabaoth, after Akira was released, after Akechi’s death and his betrayal and his plan ceased to sting. It was less charming to the rest of his friends when Haru, fueled by the compliments he had given her, created new beds for each of the Phantom Thieves. It made them uneasy, made them remember their mortality. Akira was the one member who was unperturbed by this development. The Thieves were not particularly warm to Akechi’s bed in the first place, he remembers.

 

* * *

   
  
"Why do we have to remember Akechi at all? He doesn't deserve our mourning," Ryuji said. His voice so dripping with burning hatred that it was a surprise he didn’t cough up flames.

  
  
Ann, with a delicacy that Akira had never paired her with, replied, "Does that mean no one should mourn him at all? That he should be forgotten?" The group was hushed into silence for a moment.

  
  
Morgana, less gentle but still tactful, breaks the silence. "Even so, Haru, are you sure you want to undertake caring for his memorial site? He... he was the cause of your father's death, after all." His words faltered then, trying to find how to best phrase such a heavy sentence.

  
  
Haru clasped her watering can to her chest, not tightly out of stress but lightly out of comfort. "I was a child manipulated into being a toy by my father. He was a child manipulated into being a weapon by his father. He killed my father, and I killed his. You can call it poetic, but I am just glad that chapter of my life is now closed." She sighs, a heavy thing that makes her hold her watering can further away. "Truthfully, a part of me was ready to kill my father myself. It is an ugly part of me, but a part no less."

 

"But we didn't... actually kill his father." That was Makoto's voice, logical yet sincere. Haru said nothing to this, simply shook her head in an errant fashion. It was always impossible to pin down the complexities of Haru’s mind, she seemed so far away from the rest of the Phantom Thieves. She was bull-headed too and likely would not have budged no matter what any of them said.

 

Everyone awkwardly left the garden after the argument. Akira stayed, watching Haru silently water the freshly planted seeds.

 

“Why didn’t you buy already grown flowers?”

 

Haru tilted her watering can back up before answering, “It feels more authentic if I grow it myself. I want to create something new from the end of a cycle, not… buy something to signify that the end is absolute.”

 

He nods thoughtfully at this. “Aren’t human remains a good fertilizer?”

 

Haru stops, shocked by his macabre humor, then, slowly smiles. “Only for mushrooms.”

 

* * *

 

Akira met Shido after his change of heart. It was reasoned as some necessary verification for Akira’s trial that only a face-to-face meeting could do. In reality, he thinks Makoto and Sae pulled some strings to make sure that Shido would not be able to weasel his way out of atonement. When he thinks back on it, he almost wishes he never did. The man was desolate, straining to take in every breath through the overwhelming power of his sobs. The feeling of despair only amplified by the mental ward that his co-conspirators whisked him away to. He had desperately reached out to Akira, trying to grasp his hands to feel the warmth. The hospital was so devoid of warmth. Akira, filled with fear and disgust, had instinctively back away, which had made matters worse for the old man. Truly, Akira barely remembers whatever questions had to be answered or asked or statements that had to be told or changed to complete their alibi for the visit. He only remembers the slow, dejected way in which Shido moved after Akira’s clear apprehension towards him. But he also remembers one specific moment in the long display of guilt Shido had put on.

 

Shido started to wring his hands, he seemed to have stopped listening to Sae’s sharp words. A new cry had begun to collect within him, but he forced it away with a harsh cough. He turned to Akira again, eyes filled with a horror that only a self-aware, sinful man could know.

 

His voice rasped, straining to get the words out without breaking into hysterics, “And what of Goro? What can you tell me of my son?”

 

“Your __son__  is an accomplice, as soon as we find him he’ll have to endure much worse than you,” came Sae’s voice. It commanded attention, focus. But then she softened, “But until we catch him, his crimes will be kept from the public.”

 

Shido ignored her words, pointedly pleading at Akira instead. He drew a shaky breath, “When you see Goro, in the Metaverse or somewhere else, __please,__ tell him how sorry I am. Tell him I know that I am a sorry excuse of a father, that if I weren’t so driven by my own desires-”

 

“That’s enough!” Sae quickly veered the conversation back to their false pretenses, but Akira couldn’t get the piercing gaze of Shido out of his mind. It haunted him at first, how a man’s sin could destroy not just his life but the lives of all those around him. Then it bothered him, how Akechi would never hear those words, never truly know that he had won his father, that he could live without his father. And then, it chained him, how he was the witness of a reckoning that Akechi deserved to see.

 

* * *

 

When he stared at the bare dirt before him of what would soon be Akechi’s snapdragons, he was reminded of that feverish wish of Shido. When Haru finished watering the soil, he asked her if he could be alone, even if for a moment. She stared at him quizzically at first, before making whatever deductions she had made in her mind and staring at him sympathetically. She pressed his personal copy of the key to the garden into his hand, the metal cool but her fingertips _burning,_ and left quietly.

 

He stood before the garden plot, unsure of what to do. Then, with a sudden sense of certainty, he kneeled into the dirt. It was still moist, the mud absorbing into his light wash jeans. Akira didn’t particularly care. With grace and respect, he bowed. He let his head hang low enough that the very tip of his bangs began to touch the ground, but did not let his forehead do the same. Delicately, he placed a single hand on the soil, at first to steady himself. Then, quickly, he placed his other hand to match, letting the ground cake his fingers. He dug his nails in, wanting the dirt to stay in his nail-beds for some indiscernible reason. He whispered, as if he would a prayer at a shrine, the heavy knowledge of Shido’s last request.

 

“Your father says he’s sorry.” A moment. It felt wrong to leave it at that when those small words would never undo what had already happened. “I know that sorry is not enough, but it’s a start.” He licked his lips, hesitating to say what was bubbling in his throat. “And… I’m sorry. That I couldn’t save you. That I-” He grabbed a fistful of dirt at this, only a small part of him realizing that he should be careful of the seeds. “That I didn’t meet you sooner. That I couldn’t heal away every scar the world has given you. I couldn’t heal the majority of your scars, in fact.” Blood rushed to his face, probably his position, he wouldn’t be able to hold it for much longer. “Failing you, it feels like failing myself. Because—because you’re like me. Even if you never wanted to admit it. I’m not like the others, no matter how hard I try, I __am__ apart from them. But you? You are the only person who can truly understand me.” He laughed, though he didn’t know exactly what he found so funny. “You wore your masks in the world much better than I ever did.”

 

He stood back up again, a little light-headed but feeling as if the burden of the world was _truly_ off his shoulders now. He brushed the dirt off of his clothes and palms, but the stains would remain until he did laundry. With little more than a glance, he left the garden, making sure to lock the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

That’s how his habit started. Before he left to be back home, he would watch Haru tend to the plant. At first, every day when it needed to be kept moist, then sparingly through the week when it began to grow. Wordlessly, and without fail, she would leave after her watering, unless she had something urgent to mention. When he learned her pattern, he began to only show up when she watered, catching her in the middle of the act. He never came to the garden before she arrived. Eventually, this self-enforced rule fell away when he showed up one afternoon to see the garden empty, but the watering can sitting by the plot. A small note was attached, asking him to please water the snapdragons in Haru's stead for the day. Since then, he’s taken the liberty of showing up whenever he feels the desire too. Sometimes he waters the flowers, sometimes he doesn’t. He always leaves a note so Haru knows.

 

Every time he’s alone, he whispers something to the budding flowers and the emerald leaves. When the first leaves began to show above the soil, he grew relieved that he wouldn’t have to bow to speak to them. Now, they were nearly a foot tall. They had grown only a little in his absence, he was unsure if he was relieved or saddened by the realization. He’s never talked to the other plants since they got introduced, he’s never felt a need to. He often admired his own plot, a healthy bunch of gladioli, seated firmly next to Akechi’s snapdragons. On nice days, when he ran out of words, he would sit by them and study their every detail. Once, on a very nice day for Akira, he had watered the snapdragons and had the striking idea to water the rest of the plants. As soon as the idea formed in his head, it began to fall apart. He realized that he had no idea when the other plants needed to be watered, he had stopped observing Haru’s routine. He didn’t even have the slightest idea how much water a gladiolus would need. A thin prick of guilt began to manifest in his heart, and he set the watering can aside. He wouldn’t want to ruin all of Haru’s hard work, especially since he encroached so much on this space of hers already.

 

* * *

 

When each set of flowers, save for the snapdragons, began to bloom, the Phantom Thieves would gather again. To chat mostly, but to admire Haru’s craftsmanship as well. Everyone was welcomed to take a purple iris—Makoto’s flowers—when they bloomed. Which they all accepted and proceeded to annoy each other by stuffing it in one other’s hair, much to the dismay of Haru. When the lavender heather—Ann’s—bloomed in late summer, they all lamented at the idea of going back to school, crafting exuberant plans to escape the enslaving education system. Haru gave a heartfelt speech when her hydrangeas reached maturity. She had thanked everyone again for putting her on the right path and quietly admitted that she wasn’t sure she’d be alive, let alone happy, were it not for them. This caused them to gather in a group hug and cry their eyes out. It was the first time any of them had seen Akira shed a tear, which made everyone cry even harder.

 

Ryuji had a lot to say about his short hyacinths and a lot about how he envied the taller flowers that some of them had. This caused a lot of bickering over who had the best flowers out of all of them. Akira noticed that no one mentioned how beautiful the snapdragons were in the fall, but he didn't have the heart to mention it himself. Futaba could only complain about having to take exams when her lilacs flowered, causing them all to both sympathize and try to upstage her misery. When the asters bloomed, Yusuke made an entire ordeal about painting them, then asking everyone to model around them so he could paint both the flowers and his friends. Everyone suggested the alternative of a photo, to which he scrunched his nose at disapprovingly. He later gave an individual portrait with the asters to everyone as a gift, keeping his group mural for an exhibition he had later in the year.

 

When the gladioli finally matured, they all seemed subdued. They talked in low voices, reminisced about the past. Morgana was the most talkative, saying that their adventure wasn’t over until he turned human, effectively lightening the mood between everyone. Akira caught himself still staring at the snapdragons, entranced by their presence. If anyone noticed, they didn’t care enough to force him back in the present.

 

* * *

 

But right now, the snapdragons are in full bloom. He sits next to them, alone on the roof as the wind nips at his face. He thinks of the boy they represent, and talks again. “I wish I could’ve known you. I wish a lot of things, I think.” He pauses, thinking of what to say next. “Life is filled with a lot of wishes. It doesn’t mean that any of them will come true.” He breathes in, letting the thoughts roll around in his brain before he solidifies them into words. “You deserved happiness.” He grabs a fistful of dirt to comfort him, careful of the plant and its leaves and roots. It’s a habit he’s gained since that first conversation. He opens his palms, letting the dirt run through his fingers back onto the plot. The stain will stay until he cleans his hands. “I have to go, Goro. It’s nice to talk.” And with that, he stands back up, a little satisfied but __mostly__ feeling that the world will always be cruel, no matter what. He spares one last glance at the snapdragons and then leaves the garden, making sure to lock the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Snapdragons (Akechi): both deception and gratefulness  
> Gladioli (Akira): strength of character, faithfulness, honor, and remembrance  
> Purple Iris (Makoto): eloquence and wisdom  
> Lavender Heather (Ann): admiration and beauty  
> Lilacs (Futaba): youthful innocence and confidence  
> Hydrangea (Haru): gratitude for being understood, heartfelt emotions  
> Asters (Yusuke): patience, elegance, daintiness  
> Hyacinth (Ryuji): playfulness, sporty attitude, constancy
> 
> I kinda forgot about Morgana I'm so sorry ;-;  
> Quick notes:  
> -The 'bowing' Akira does isn't out of respect, it's to get as close to the seeds as possible. I hope I made that clear enough, but just in case!  
> -The talk of the flowers blooming is all nonlinear.


End file.
